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Pat Buchanan's Campaign Chronicle of the 1960s
Townhall.com ^ | July 9, 2014 | Terry Jeffrey

Posted on 07/09/2014 12:24:43 PM PDT by Kaslin

Shortly before Richard Nixon was going to formally announce that he would be running again for president in 1968, Pat Buchanan and Rose Mary Woods, two of his closest aides, presented him with an idea.

"Given the multiple crises confronting the nation -- race conflict, soaring crime, inflation, the war in Vietnam, the mounting Soviet missile threat -- and the difficulty of dealing with them all at once," Buchanan writes in his new book "The Greatest Comeback," "we suggested that Nixon in a single declaration destroy the image of him as a consummate politician and tell the nation 'that the next president should be a one-term president.'"

Nixon dismissed the idea of term-limiting himself. He did not want, as Buchanan relates it, to be "a lame duck from his inaugural."

"In retrospect, Nixon was right," says Buchanan. "Yet when one looks at what he accomplished in his first term and what became of his second, he would today be listed, like Polk, who sought and served but a single term, among the near-great presidents."

Wherever Nixon's merits and demerits place him among American presidents, Buchanan's first-person chronicle of how Nixon climbed back from a humiliating defeat in the 1962 California gubernatorial election to win the presidency in 1968 is not just a unique and enduring look at one of this nation's most interesting political campaigns but at a decade that changed America forever.

Buchanan left his job on the editorial page of the St. Louis Globe-Democrat at the end of 1965 to become an assistant to Nixon, who was then planning to spend 1966 campaigning for Republicans running in that year's midterm elections.

The GOP was then still reeling from Barry Goldwater's 1964 defeat, and the question was whether the party, in 1968, would fall back into the hands of a liberal establishment headed by New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller -- or turn to Gov. George Romney of Michigan.

The GOP did neither, of course. In "The Greatest Comeback" -- which is a page-turning narrative, not an analysis -- Buchanan tells the story of Nixon's 1968 victory from the perspective of a man who travelled with, advised, and was loyal to Nixon, but is nonetheless candid about both Nixon's faults and his virtues.

"When Nixon trusted you he would let down his guard, and I got to know him better than any other boss I ever knew," Buchanan writes.

Buchanan anchored the right flank of Nixon's immediate staff, and part of his job was to help keep the conservative movement -- which had backed Goldwater in 1964 -- in Nixon's camp for 1968.

Beyond that was a longer-term political vision. "The crucial elements of the new majority I had in mind," writes Buchanan, "were the solid centrist GOP base that had stood by Nixon in 1960, the rising conservative movement, to which I belonged, the 'northern Catholic ethnics' of German, Irish, Italian, Polish and other East European descent, and the Southern Protestants, who saw themselves as abandoned by a Democratic Party moving leftward."

In this vein, Buchanan, who would later become President Ronald Reagan's communications director, sent Nixon a memo before the 1968 Republican convention urging that he pick the first-term California governor as his running mate.

"We are going to have to be bold to win this one," Buchanan wrote his boss. "I can currently think of nothing bolder than to put the hero of 'Bedtime for Bonzo' on the ticket."

Spiro Agnew got the nod instead.

Buchanan's book is a great story told by a great storyteller. Along the way are first-person anecdotes that not only reveal how Buchanan's boss plotted and executed what may indeed have been the greatest comeback in American political history, but also how he prepared himself to use the presidency he won to deal with great international problems, including the Vietnam War and U.S. relations with the Soviet Union and China.

Then it could hardly have been imagined that two decades later, under the leadership of Ronald Reagan, America would win the Cold War. Or that two decades after that, we would still be fighting a domestic cultural war that first began overtly manifesting itself in our towns and cities as Nixon inched his way toward victory in 1968.

Even though this book ends with Nixon's election, Buchanan makes clear he has only arrived at the middle of the story. Volume two will be set at the White House.


TOPICS: Editorial; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: georgeromney; nelsonrockefeller; richardnixon; ronaldreagan
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To: PapaNew
I have already told you. You and I have no point of contact. You think the country is the federal government. There is no conservative conversation to have with you.
21 posted on 07/10/2014 4:54:28 PM PDT by donna (Pray for revival.)
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To: donna
You think the country is the federal government.

Where did you get that wild idea? I never said that. I said and reasoned how what Buchanan say leads to federal government interference and you haven't refuted that. You haven't even addressed that.

You need to pay more attention to what I am saying to you. I think you may have some pre-existing assumptions somewhere that are interfering with you clearly reading and understanding what I am saying.

22 posted on 07/10/2014 5:13:02 PM PDT by PapaNew
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To: PapaNew

You’re talking in circles.


23 posted on 07/10/2014 5:26:35 PM PDT by donna (Pray for revival.)
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To: donna
You initially asked how I could argue with Buchanan's statements. I did. You're responses have been basically incoherent and had nothing to do with my replies. You make these wild assertions and don't explain what you mean.

I would say if anyone is talking in circles it is you.

I thought this would be a good-faith discussion. It is not. Please stop wasting my time.

24 posted on 07/10/2014 5:38:52 PM PDT by PapaNew
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To: PapaNew

Did you read the columns at the links I provided that fully explain Buchanan’s point of view? He is very persuasive.


25 posted on 07/10/2014 6:34:03 PM PDT by donna (Pray for revival.)
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To: donna

No, as I said, YOU need to be able to put together a rationale yourself about why you agree or disagree with my specific attacks on Buchanan’s specific statements.


26 posted on 07/10/2014 7:28:22 PM PDT by PapaNew
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To: PapaNew

Why would you attack Buchanan’s specific statements before you’ve even read them?


27 posted on 07/10/2014 10:56:45 PM PDT by donna (Pray for revival.)
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To: donna

Talk about going around in circles. This discussion began with your challenge to disagree with passages from

FREE TRADE IS NOT FREE
Patrick J. Buchanan
Address to the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations
November 18, 1998

I’ve done that and you have utterly failed to engage in a rational discussion about my attacks and rationale on three specific quotes from this passage and a fourth statement about why blockages to free trade does more harm than good.

As I said, please, if you’re not interested in a good faith, rational train of thought and discussion, stop wasting my time.


28 posted on 07/11/2014 7:22:17 AM PDT by PapaNew
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To: PapaNew

I already explained to you that we have no point of common ground. Our “country” wasn’t founded on free trade and the federal government is not our “country”.

We can continue this dance forever if you like. I don’t mind - but, you should read Buchanan’s writings because he explains how we got in this fix.


29 posted on 07/11/2014 8:01:28 PM PDT by donna (Pray for revival.)
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To: donna
Our “country” wasn’t founded on free trade .

I've given you reasons why blocking free trade does more harm than good (Post #18). You have given no substantive response.

the federal government is not our “country”

Nobody said it was. If you bothered to read my response to Buchanan's statements, I challenged you to explain why three the specific statements he made doesn't mean federal interference with the economy (Post #16). You have given no substantive response.

Instead, you play ring around the rosy with yourself and your misstatements of what I have posted to you.

30 posted on 07/11/2014 9:00:29 PM PDT by PapaNew
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To: PapaNew

Mar 11, 2008
Excerpt:

Is it going to take 20 more years for Republicans to awaken to the economic disaster they have created and the political ruin they are inviting with this fanatic faith in “free trade,” while the rest of the world loots our country through mercantilism?

When Europe imposes a 15 percent value-added tax on U.S. imports and rebates the VAT on exports to the United States, that is not free trade. When China devalues its currency 45 percent, as it did in 1994, and bolts it down to suck jobs and factories out of the United States, that is not free trade. When Japan manipulates its currency, preaches economic nationalism to its people, and shelters its market for TVs, autos and steel, while dumping into and capturing ours, that is not free trade.

http://www.creators.com/opinion/pat-buchanan/to-die-for-nafta.html


31 posted on 07/12/2014 5:21:02 PM PDT by donna (Pray for revival.)
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To: donna
Economic "protectionism" is a form of shooting yourself in the foot. U.S. tariffs don't hurt the other guy, it hurts American consumers by raising the prices of goods and lessens the supply because suppliers will go elsewhere if necessary.

It doesn't matter that the other guy puts up tariffs - he's just raising his costs of doing business - he's shooting himself in the foot. As long as we don't raise tariffs, American consumers will have the benefit of competitive forces that allow for maximum choices and quality at the lowest prices.

32 posted on 07/12/2014 5:25:09 PM PDT by PapaNew
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To: PapaNew

01/23/201
Excerpt:

...The losers?

Middle Americans. The average U.S. family has not seen a rise in real wages in 40 years. This is directly traceable to the loss of more than one-third of all U.S. manufacturing jobs. And that loss, that deindustrialization of America, is directly tied to the $10 trillion in trade deficits since Bush I.

Writers who celebrate how U.S. imports have risen in this month or that year almost never mention the trade deficit for this month or that year.

Perhaps that is because the United States has not run a trade surplus in four decades, whereas, in the first 70 years of the 20th century, we never ran a trade deficit.

Trade surpluses add to GDP; trade deficits subtract from GDP.

And when in a company town the company closes the factory, the town often dies. And all the little satellite businesses – bars, diners, food stores, pharmacies – that rose around the factory, they die, too.

The tombstones of countless dead towns across America should read: Killed by Free Trade.

http://www.wnd.com/2014/01/free-trade-far-from-free/


33 posted on 07/12/2014 5:58:08 PM PDT by donna (Pray for revival.)
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To: donna
OK, Donna. You originally presented me with a passage from Buchanan about the free market and free trade which I challenged specifically in four areas. You didn’t respond substantively to any of my arguments against Buchanan’s assertions. Instead you’ve moved on to other quotes from Buchanan. Is it because you’re unable to grapple with the elements of a somewhat difficult subject? I don’t know. But I think and hope that what I have said, left unchallenged and unrefuted, would at least give you pause and merits your (and others) reconsidering your positions and support .

Moving on then, do you understand what is meant by "trade deficit" and "trade surplus"?

Trade deficit simply means we are buying more of the other guys goods than he is buying of our goods. This is like you going to the store and buying what you need. A "trade deficit" means you're getting more products in and sending out less. Why is that a bad thing? In your household, why would you want to be sending more goods than what you get coming in? After all, that’s what you earn your money for.

Tariffs are said to "protect the consumer." But tariffs only "protect" the consumer from one thing: low prices. What tariffs really protect are special interests at the EXPENSE of the consumer.

Have you heard of Adam Smith, the 18th Century economist who wrote the famous book, "The Wealth of Nations"? Smith, who is generally considered the father of modern economics, said this, as relevant now as it was then, in arguing for free trade:

"In every country, it always is and must be in the interests of the great body of the people, to buy whatever they want of those who sell it the cheapest. The proposition is so very manifest that it seems ridiculous to take any pains to prove it nor could it have ever been called into question had not the interested sophistry of merchants and manufacturers confounded the common sense of mankind. Their interests are in this respect, directly the opposite of that of the great body of the people."

I recommend to you Nobel Prize winner Milton Friedman, considered maybe the leading economist of our times, as a very knowledgeable and persuasive advocate along these lines. I’ve used some his thoughts and ideas here, taken from a speech recorded on YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urSe86zpLI4

I recommend you listen to this and other speeches (many on YouTube). He has much to say about freedom, the free market, and free trade that is very worthwhile. If you’re interested further, I highly recommend Friedman's highly regarded book, “Capitalism and Freedom”.

34 posted on 07/13/2014 4:54:04 PM PDT by PapaNew
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To: PapaNew

Patrick J. Buchanan
7/20/2012

Under GOP-blessed rules of free trade, these corporations are able to shutter plants here, move to Latin America or Asia, and produce there. Now they have the right to bring their China-made goods back to the United States, duty-free, and fill the malls of America with those goods.

As Republicans rightly argue, by cutting the cost of production by moving it abroad, companies can offer lower prices for those goods here at home. Soaring profits from those higher sales mean higher stock prices and dividends, not to mention seven- and eight-figure salaries for the corporate magicians who work such miracles.

But as Milton Friedman observed, “There is no such thing as a free lunch.” And though Milton was its champion, free trade is no free lunch.

While there are winners from free trade, there are also losers.

First among them are high-wage U.S. factory workers whose plants are closed when production moves abroad. Next are factory workers who lose their jobs when foreign-made goods fill up the malls and the companies they work for, companies that stayed in the U.S.A., go under.

Was it a free lunch for the 6 million who lost manufacturing jobs in the last decade when 50,000 U.S. factories disappeared? Has it been a free lunch for the American worker who has not seen a pay raise in four decades?

And what of the nation?

For decades, America has been de-industrializing, with manufacturing shrinking as a share of gross domestic product to 11 percent, from over 30 percent in 1950. Not since before the Civil War have we been so dependent on foreign goods for the necessities of our national life, including the national defense. Our independence is a thing of yesterday.

This was the predicted and inevitable fruit of globalization.

Is this good for America?

Perhaps if one is a believing globalist. Then, whatever the result of globalization, whoever the winners and losers, that is what is best, for a globalized world is the best of all worlds.

This, of course, is not patriotism talking, or the voice of wisdom born of experience. It is a recitation from the globalist catchism.

When the history of American decline is written, the historians will zero in on a choice the nation made, when the interests of Middle America collided with those of Corporate America.

http://humanevents.com/2012/07/20/pat-buchanan-the-chickens-of-globalization-come-home-to-roost/


35 posted on 07/13/2014 6:13:21 PM PDT by donna (Pray for revival.)
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To: donna

He’s mixing political globalization, an anathema, with free trade, a blessing to those countries who embrace it.

At this point, we’re talking past each other. I’ll respond in kind with some Friedman quotes and I think we’re done - it’s useless to start volleying other people’s quotes back and forth.

Tariffs & trade restrictions impede economic growth
Governmental measures constitute the major impediments to economic growth. Tariffs and other restrictions on international trade, high tax burdens and a complex and inequitable tax structure, regulatory commissions government price and wage fixing, and a host of other measures give individuals an incentive to misuse and misdirect resources, and distort the investment of new savings. What we urgently need, for both economic stability and growth, is a reduction of government intervention, not an increase
Source: Capitalism and Freedom, by Milton Friedman, p. 38 , Nov 15, 1962

Interfering with trade is the road to authoritarianism
Interferences with international trade appear innocuous; they can get the support of people who are otherwise apprehensive of interference by government into economic affairs; many a business man even regards them as part of the “American Way of Life”; yet there are few interferences which are capable of spreading so far and ultimately being so destructive of free enterprise. There is much experience to suggest that the most effective way to convert a market economy into an authoritarian economic society is to start by imposing direct controls on foreign exchange. This one step leads inevitably to the rationing of imports, to control over domestic production that uses imported products or that produces substitutes for imports, and so on in a never-ending spiral.
Source: Capitalism and Freedom, by Milton Friedman, p. 57 , Nov 15, 1962

http://www.ontheissues.org/celeb/Milton_Friedman_Free_Trade.htm


36 posted on 07/13/2014 9:32:33 PM PDT by PapaNew
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To: PapaNew

But tariffs are taxes, comes the retort of Libertarians. Tariffs raise the prices of goods. True. But all taxes—tariffs, income taxes, sales taxes, property taxes—are factored into the final price of the goods we buy. When a nation puts a tariff on foreign goods coming into the country, it is able to cut taxes on goods produced inside the country. This is a way to give US manufacturers and workers a “home-field advantage.” This was Hamilton’s way and we have now abandoned it. And for what?

Source: Where the Right Went Wrong, by Pat Buchanan, p.172 , Aug 12, 2004


37 posted on 07/14/2014 10:10:57 AM PDT by donna (Pray for revival.)
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To: donna
Again, Donna, you and Pat miss the point. "Protectionism" and tariffs do help, but the help is for a consecrated, visible special interest group (steel mfrs for instance) at the expense of the American People ("the great body of the people") who pay higher prices.

By protecting underperforming domestic producers by squelching competition through forced higher prices the American consumer and, therefore, America, loses.

"Home field advantage" is achieved through free and open competition which forces companies to find new and better ways of doing what they do best. The consumer wins by getting the best product for the best price.

Government protection makes domestic consumer lazy and unresponsive to competitive forces and the consumer loses.

38 posted on 07/14/2014 10:41:09 AM PDT by PapaNew
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To: donna
Correction to the previous post...

Government protection makes the domestic producer lazy and unresponsive to competitive forces and the consumer loses.

39 posted on 07/14/2014 11:27:48 AM PDT by PapaNew
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To: PapaNew

Pat Buchanan
03/11/2010

Though Bush 41 and Bush 43 often disagreed, one issue did unite them both with Bill Clinton: protectionism.

Globalists all, they rejected any federal measure to protect America’s industrial base, economic independence or the wages of U.S. workers.

Together they rammed through NAFTA, brought America under the World Trade Organization, abolished tariffs and granted Chinese-made goods unrestricted access to the immense U.S. market.

Charles McMillion of MBG Information Services has compiled, in 44 pages of charts and graphs, the results of two decades of this Bush-Clinton experiment in globalization. His compilation might be titled, “Indices of the Industrial Decline and Fall of the United States.”

From 2000 to 2009, industrial production declined here for the first time since the 1930s. Gross domestic product also fell, and we actually lost jobs.

Has the United States been irreparably harmed by the globalist elites? Don’t miss Jerome Corsi’s new book, “America for Sale: Fighting the New World Order, Surviving a Global Depression, and Preserving USA Sovereignty”

In traded goods alone, we ran up $6.2 trillion in deficits – $3.8 trillion of that in manufactured goods.

Things that we once made in America – indeed, we made everything – we now buy from abroad with money that we borrow from abroad.

Over this Lost Decade, 5.8 million manufacturing jobs, one of every three we had in Y2K, disappeared. That unprecedented job loss was partly made up by adding 1.9 million government workers.

The last decade was the first in history where government employed more workers than manufacturing, a stunning development to those of us who remember an America where nearly one-third of the U.S. labor force was producing almost all of our goods and much of the world’s, as well.

Not to worry, we hear, the foreign products we buy are toys and low-tech goods. We keep the high-tech jobs here in the USA.

Sorry. U.S. trade surpluses in advanced technology products ended in Bush’s first term. The last three years we have run annual trade deficits in ATP of nearly $70 billion with China alone. (snip)

http://www.wnd.com/2010/03/127748/#D3Z7Tdvbo3tiMBsF.99


40 posted on 07/14/2014 3:03:13 PM PDT by donna (Pray for revival.)
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